Sarah Ann Kelleher is Misfit Mod, who trades images of 60s smokey two-cycle scooters for her Kiwi upbringing of bright orange BMXs. A self-made, auto-didactic musician; Sarah eschews the conventions of musical schools of theorems in favor of channeling an intuitive approach born out the past years of musical experiments in a New Zealand textile factory where inceptions of her forthcoming Islands & Islands album began and can be heard on the new single.
The electro hum of “Sugar C.” evokes more than Kelleher's combined song-inspired London beverages made from crushed lavender, violet liquor, sweet cherries or her musical scores from Swedish fashioneer Josefin Arnell's performance based art installation-showcases. “You talked some shit and made a pact, said that we ain't coming back, Sugar Cane can you tell me how to get away from this town?” The pensive mode and electronic sparse key notes creates the sound of Sarah's late night NZ exodus to London with the help of a candy cane outlaw on the run. “Sugar Cane, what you run from? Sugar Cane where you go? Sugar Cane where you run from? Sugar Cane where you go?” Her voice whispers the questions that ask for further story behind the mysterious sugar daddy figure that promises safe flight and refuge from town, carving the tentative sound of waiting by the pier for that ship to come in with sails set for the loading docks of London.
The b-side “Cars” reflects her traveled beat-mixology learnings from Oxford, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and back again to London, strung together by a sampling of her own ghost thin walls of back up vocals sustained in cavernous melodic channels. “Got to make a move from the backseat of this car”, in between numeric counts expressing wants and nots; Sarah creates sentiments of apprehension, anticipation and hesitation with atmospheric vocal low key harmonics and exhibitions of constrained and restrained utilization and placement of percussive beat crackles on wax.
Cover art by Brooke Olsen with hand made screen prints from made by the UK based, People of Print.
Kelleher's upcoming Misfit Mod release Sugar C. is limited to 200 7″ vinyl pressings and will be available Tuesday, December 4 while the full-length, Islands & Islands will drop in early 2013 all from Brooklyn indie imprint, Stars & Letters.
